


Answers

by Nova_Turient



Series: Scrambled (aka: Doctor and Master keep meeting in the wrong order) [2]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Car Sex, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Post-Episode: Revolution of the Daleks, universe ending paradox, wow that escalated quickly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:28:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28652763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nova_Turient/pseuds/Nova_Turient
Summary: The Doctor needs answers, but the Master is nowhere to be found.Luckily, one Rat Boy can solve her problems, and almost cause the end of the universe while he's at it.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Simm)
Series: Scrambled (aka: Doctor and Master keep meeting in the wrong order) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2101014
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	Answers

* * *

The only place in which the Doctor hated to roam around was Kasterborous. It didn’t have anything wrong, really, but it felt more like taking a stroll in your backyard than properly travel. And, as it happened, she was very much into travelling. To make matter worse, scanning an entire constellation multiple times through multiple timeframes, the Doctor was starting to feel more trapped than in that Judoon prison.

Nothing on Prospera V, exactly like the other ten times she checked. Prospera was the fifth planet in a very new system, the last one to show signs of civilization, in fact. New people with new cultures and basically no understanding of the universe, what the Master would’ve called fertile soil where to rebuild his Cyber-Army, or whatever he had called it.

Except he was nowhere to be found.

Observing alien civilizations invent their version of the television, and start writing their version of media criticism was always a delight. But it veered quickly on boring, after they started the same argument about brainwashing for the fourth time in that century. The Doctor flew away in a hurry when she discovered her sightings had become a full on phenomenon, and now her blurry photos appeared on the cover of more conspiracy theory magazine she was okay with.

The Doctor paced her console room, biting her nails till it started to hurt. The situation was serious, they had to talk. She had been at least 99% positive he would’ve been there this time. Yes, she left him with a Death Particle detonator pointing at his face...but it wasn’t like he didn’t escape worst situations…right?

The realization that she might have killed him dawned on her, but she shook it away quickly with a shake of her own head. That was not the time for that kind of thoughts. That was the Time for the Master to explain himself and his foolish plan, to tell her exactly why he killed them...to let her know what to think of him now that…

There was only one thing left to do.

The Doctor ran to the controls, typing in some coordinates before glaring at her TARDIS when she vworped in objection. She pulled down the lever, and launched the box into the Vortex.

* * *

Dumps were fun.

Yeah, there were weird smells, but other than that they were full of very improbable stuff. Humans threw away the most interesting things sometimes. If you were to dig into one of the trash piles the Doctor was walking through, you would be much like an archaeologist. The Doctor repressed that last thought, just in case River was eavesdropping on her internal monologues.

Unlike the first time, the Master was easy to find, especially if you knew where to search. Her task became even easier when a sharp roar of pain echoed from an abandoned car, slightly tilted on a hill. The Doctor walked towards it, halting only when a blue light and some electrostatic energy started to shine from inside the vehicle. She had been hit with...whatever that was, not an experience she wanted to repeat.

Poking her head inside she flashed a bright smile.

The Master was crumpled on the passenger seat, leaning against the window, with a layer of sweat on his forehead and his legs propped up against his chest. He trembled from time to time, eyes squeezed shut, muttering what the Doctor could only imagine were very long Gallifreyan curses. He loved his Gallifreyan curses, this one.

Her smile softened, because, despite everything, twenty years of prison really made her miss him.

“You look horrible.” she exclaimed.

The Master’s eyes snapped towards her, irises twitching and red sclera. He frowned as she started climbing on the driver seat.

“Who the hell are you?” he growled. She ignored him and made herself comfortable, yanking the door closed behind her.

“Hoodie, uh? What, couldn’t find an accountant to steal his suit?” she gestured at the small pink tree hanging from the rear-view mirror “Nice place, do you live here? Loving the decor.” she noticed a crumpled packet of candy from the dashboard and grabbed it “Are those yours?”

The Master muttered a very audible and exasperated “on no”, rolling his eyes as he straightened on his seat and forced his breath to even out.

“How did you regenerate? Stepped on the laces of those stupid sand-shoes of yours?”

The Doctor tilted the packet of candy towards her had, frowning when she found it empty.

“That was quick.” she commented, unimpressed.

“Honestly, Doctor, who else would babble that much nons-ugh”

The Master lurched forward, biting down on a scream. He doubled down, trying to somehow hold his head and his chest together, like he was gonna fall apart. A bright blue glow shone for a moment on his face, and his breath went back to being heavy.

The Doctor turned to him, tilting down her head to see his hidden expression.

“Does it hurt?” she asked, for lack of anything else to say.

The Master snorted “ _Does it hurt?”_ he mocked, upper lip curling “What do you think?!”

After a long groan his gaze fell, eyes squeezing shut as a wave of shivers took over his body. The Doctor jumped forward, reaching for his face.

“Let me-”

He swatted her hand away “Don’t. Touch. Me.” he spat, too weak to even glare at her this time.

The Doctor scoffed, falling back into the seat “Fine, keep on hurting.”

She left him grunt and writhe beside her, facing straight ahead as she waited for him to stop wheezing. When he finally did, and his breathing lost that sickly edge, she turned to look at him.

She still remembered how she felt about him, back then. Mutated and in pain, probably at his worst in centuries, she still felt like she knew him. She used to recognize the voice of her old friend behind that manic laugh. She wondered what happened, whose fault was that she couldn’t do that any more.

“Sniffing a paradox here…” the Master broke the silence, quite literally sniffing the air, and turned to her with a frown “When are you from exactly?”

The Doctor shook her head, because of course she couldn’t tell him that. He probably knew it too but took the chance anyway. Anything to cause a bit of chaos.

“I just wanted to talk.”

“Talk?” he laughed, short and piercing “You’re about to crumple the universe on itself for a chat?”

“Oh, stop being dramatic! It’s just a paradox.”

The Master snorted “When I did that you called me a maniac.” she scoffed back “Can’t you go and talk with yours? I have enough of one of you running around...”

“Not really an option.”

“Why? Am I dead?”

The Doctor flinched. Her hands suddenly grabbing one another as to comfort herself. She averted her eyes before she could give him any more hints. Despite that, the Master face contorted into a wicked grin.

“Oh...you don’t know. Do you?” he guessed...correctly. The Doctor huffed “How does it feel? Bad, I hope.”

“How do you feel about me?” The Doctor blurted out when the Master leaned forward, ready to taunt her some more.

She didn’t know where that exact phrase came from, but twenty years of confinement, asking herself that question every waking hour had probably something to do with it. Because the sad truth was that if he could forgive her...maybe she could forgive him.

He frowned “What?”

“I killed them.” she explained, with an unnerving calmness in her voice “I killed them all. I destroyed our home. How do you feel about me?”

“I hate you.” matter-of-factly, not losing a beat.

She rolled her eyes “Besides that. Which, spoilers, never changes.”

He blinked away his stupor and straightened himself, evidently taken aback by her lack of response to his crude words. He was like that, he liked to say the most hurtful stuff to bring out a reaction from her. It might’ve worked with converse shoes, it wasn’t about to work with her. The Master shrugged to himself, pondering his next words, before staring back into her eyes like he was about to confess the entirety of his sins. The Doctor leaned forward, expectant.

“Good job.” he brought out, with some difficulty “They deserved it.”

The Doctor froze, because if there was something she did not expect, it was the respect of a known killer. She stammered, laughed in shock.

“Genocide? Is this what it takes for you to respect me?” he stared at her with wide eyes like he was surprised she was doubting it.

“What? Do you want me to lecture you?”

The Doctor tensed up “They were our people-” he bolted forward, all in her face.

“They were never our people, and you know it!” he barked.

The Doctor breath caught. Because, as much as he didn’t know yet, that has never been a more appropriate sentence spoken from his mouth. The Master huffed, leaning back until his head hit the window. He looked to the dumpster outside and then back at her, eyes thin with grief.

“You and I, we have always been different… It’s the reason you ran-” he took a deep breath, lowering his gaze “And I followed.”

It was just a murmur, but in that suddenly very tight and confined space, there was really little she wouldn’t have heard.

The Master grunted, eyes falling shut, twisting his neck like an invisible spear was slowly piercing his head. His fingers twitched in time with an all too familiar rhythm, and the Doctor found herself reaching out with her own hands to cover his. He looked up, confused, and she looked back questioningly. She knew how to stop the drums, at least for a while. She remembered the infinite afternoons she spent with Missy, trying to figure it out. She didn’t know how he sensed it, but when she asked that silent question he just nodded in earnest, closing his eyes, trusting her completely.

She touched his temples lightly, laid her forehead on his, breathing in as she soothed the drumming with long, steady caresses at the corner of his mind. The Master hummed, losing all the tension in his body and letting his head fall into her cradling hands.

The Doctor felt her bile rise into her throat at the thought of that fateful day. She hated the memory of the moment he looked into the Vortex. Hated how she felt jealousy when he entered the room before her. How naive they were back then, so trusting of their own abusers.

The Doctor opened her eyes, finding brown ones staring back, thankful and finally free of their torment. All the pain the Time Lords caused him washing away. They didn’t deserve the praise the universe gave them, didn’t deserve to be one of the most powerful races. She hated them...she hated them so much.

And suddenly, what the Master did, didn’t sound so insane after all.

What _this_ Master did, instead, was completely foolish.

The Doctor didn’t feel his hands sneak behind her neck until they were gripping at her hair, tugging forward.

He kissed her as she fell on top of him, and she kissed him back, finding herself unwilling to put any form of resistance, despite the universe consuming paradox currently waiting for them just outside the car. She’ll deal with it later.

The Doctor slid her hands from the side of his face to his neck, where she gripped at the hoodie and used it to prop herself up, swinging her legs either side of his hips. The angles were all wrong and the position made everything ten times uglier. But they were not about to do anything pretty now, were they?

He bit her along the throat and she answered by tugging at his hair a little too much. He reached for her coat, shoving it off her shoulders. He was so eager to get her out of those clothes she was sure she heard something rip. She distracted her mind pretty quickly, though, grabbing the hem of his pants and trying to pull them down despite the awkward position. It took a bit of effort from both parts, and when they managed to get each other pants down, their breaths were so laboured it looked like they were done already. Thank Rassilon that was not the case.

She sank down on him and they moaned in unison, grabbing at each other, freezing when they both felt the paradox swirling around them. There were probably a million stars going out in that precise moment, billion lives dissolving into nothing. The Doctor knew it was temporary, obviously, if she acted in the recommended times she could revert everything. But she buried her face in his neck nonetheless, trying to focus on anything else but that.

The Master turned to kiss her just above the ear, almost reassuring, the only tender gesture since she arrived. The madman was probably finding that same thought terribly romantic. Two lovers at the edge of a dying universe, consuming each other while everything around them burned. Yeah, that was about his style, she supposed. And thinking about it...maybe hers too this time around. The Doctor smiled at that. Oh, she was in so much trouble.

“Paradox is growing.” he cautioned with a grin in his voice.

The Doctor smirked “As far as I can tell…” she purred into his ear, grinding down “it’s not alone.”

He grunted back at her “Crass.”

“Yeah, you would know.”

This Master was usually a chatterbox, and sex just worsened it, but at least this one time he decided to shut up. For a long while there were just their frantic breaths and the beating of each other hearts in their ears.

The Doctor felt the insistent press of his mind against hers, the lascivious way it slithered against hers sending shivers down every end of her nervous system. She glared at him, how incredibly sly to try and gain access to the future that way, even then, in that situation. He just smirked back, kissing her roughly as a form of apology, what a sly dog. He really didn’t realize how hard it was to keep up a mental block when she had him under her, grinning up with that wolfish smile and dark eyes.

It wasn’t fair when she came so soon with a shudder and a sharp cry, bringing him over the edge with her. She collapsed on top of him and they both sighed at that, leaning heir foreheads together while they caught their breath. There was no time for that, though.

Around them the air had changed and the sunlight was turning into a very worrying shade of red. The paradox had reached them, looming above with its threatening cataclysms. There they were, the two lovers at the edge of the universe. The Master circled her shoulders, holding her tight. How romantic would it be to die like that? At the mercy of time, their bodies lost forever but their minds connected, lost in the void for eternity, but together.

The Doctor felt a pang of pain when she reached up, fingers pressing into his temples. The Master tried to protest but his voice died down into a mumble when he lost conscience, all memories of what had just happened snatched away from him. The Doctor kissed him on the forehead one last time, the light of the sun slowly losing its red tint, time stopping, the universe reverting back to its original state.

When she entered her TARDIS and departed to reach the vortex she even managed to ignore her old girl irritated vworps.

She smiled, thinking how, when she met _her_ Master again, she would have at least one memory to give him back.

  
  


  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This was not supposed to turn into this. This was rated T but then the "paradox is growing" pun came out and I slipped.


End file.
